Although this treat was posted a good six months ago on TORn, I completely missed it, and mayhap you did too. Lindele had managed (through some sort of audio magic) to extract the song from The Hobbit trailer, eliminating all talking and background noise, creating over 2 minutes of clear dwarf singing and orchestral glory! You think you liked it before? Just wait till you hear this! It is available as an MP3 download (right click and “save link as”).
[I often have issues getting audio files such as this to play online without skips (QuickTime and my computer don’t see eye to eye for some reason), but once downloaded, it will play fine in Windows Media Player or a similar program.]
Update 6/21/12: Thanks to The Queen, I was finally able to read an informative description of the Dwarves’ song on Doug Adams website. Adams has written about the music of the Lord of the Rings films, and will be doing the same for The Hobbit, but for now he is sworn to secrecy, so it is up to others to fill in the gaps till then. A poster named “Ewan” had some interesting things to say about the style of the song, and why it speaks to us:
Nice that the diegetic song appears to be by Shore, allowing extensive integration into the non-diegetic score in a way we didn’t see in LOTR.
The style of the song references gregorian chant and early organum (monkish vibratoless male voices, Stepwise melody, open and parallel 5ths). This conjures a sense of deep past in a European-inspired culture. Any religious connotations are avoided by the orchestral accompaniment, words, and similarities to more vernacular Celtic or Nordic folksong. (Note, for example the melodic similarities to Horner’s Braveheart love theme, which itself is a textbook study of Celtic sociomusical connotation.) Finally, the style is similar to elvish singing in it’s sense of mystique and remembrance of an ancient past in the fog of memory. Yet it is distanced from Shore’s elvish music by being completely diatonic, with no hints of eastern otherness. It is also hyper-masculine (through deep voices and repeated notes) as opposed to the more androgynous elvish singing heard in LOTR.
If, like me, you find this fascinating but mostly beyond comprehension, Ewan’s second post goes a long way to explain what it all means.
hotdwarflovin said:
Nori it would be nice if you could face the right way for the song. I can’t wait until the soundtrack is released and we get this song in full (hopefully, Howard Shore please!)
DarkJackal said:
Nori was bad (got caught stealing from Mr. Baggins) and had to go stand in a corner.
AW267 said:
Has it not been confirmed that Howard Shore is scoring these films?
DarkJackal said:
Here is a bit of info from author Doug Adams about that:
http://www.musicoflotr.com/2012/04/ongoing-discussion-april-2012.html
vec170203 said:
all I can say is Thank You! , ;) … I only had the part of the song
saraleee said:
Wow, it is really clear! The whole soundtrack is going to go immediately on my “to buy” list.
oakenshield89 said:
thanks so much for this!it’s on permanent replay on my mp3 player ;)…just haaave to drink up those delicious basses <3
The Queen said:
Outstanding! I’m a soundtrack freak and have been looking forward to Mr. Shore’s music FOREVER!!! Not much longer now!? Thank you so much!!! (Amen on “those delicious basses!! They’d make any choral director proud!!)
april73 said:
I just have saved the file in my USB key.
Thanks a lot to you and Lindele for sharing it with us. :-)
GratianaLovelace said:
Thanks DJ!
I’ll add this to my Hobbit files.
Cheers! Grati ;->
phylly3 said:
Wonderful! That’s for showcasing this for us! :)
fitzg said:
Thank you! Amazing the way that Mr. A can reach the light baritone to very deep baritone ranges. (I have to throw in a comment that Howard Shore is a Canadian composer. :D )
DarkJackal said:
LOL! You remind me of my Canadian friend. Always reminding me that all the good stuff is from Canada!
Andrew said:
Not sure if you’ve seen this yet, but it appears one track from the soundtrack has been leaked: http://geeklifebalance.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/the-hobbit-soundtrack-sneak-peek/
As I mention in the post, I’m not sure legit it is, but it sure sounds good.
DarkJackal said:
I think that is this piece which someone created digitally using known themes from LOTR and the new themes from the trailer:
yelloweeee said:
Thanks for posting this :)
It’s really impressive to be able to take out all that background noise and talk, but it makes Howard Shore’s brilliant music so much better! I hope there is a longer version of “Misty Mountains” in the film
DarkJackal said:
I don’t doubt there’s going to be a longer version. Maybe not as long as the book but surely more than 6 lines.
The Dwarrow Scholar said:
Great stuff, thanks for posting this…
Erick said:
Heard this song in the Hobbit and haven’t been able to stop singing it! I got to watch a special showing at 9 pm on Dec. 13
EVERYONE MUST SEE